Thursday, September 23, 1999
By SEAMUS McGRAW
Staff Writer
Bergen Record
LODI -- Sometime in the next day or two, the shrouded body of Mohamed
Jamal Tabaa will be taken from a Paterson mosque and buried in a North
Jersey cemetery. With that, family members said, his soul finally will
be at rest.
But, they say, they will remain tormented by the memory of a six-day
ordeal in which they fought to prevent the Bergen County Medical
Examiner's Office from performing an autopsy on the body of the 27-year-
old Hackensack man, who was swept away by floodwaters in Lodi last
Thursday.
The battle ended Wednesday when a Superior Court judge in Hackensack
ordered that Tabaa's remains be turned over to the family, scuttling
the autopsy. He also directed that the cause of death be listed as
undetermined.
"I feel a father's pain," Mohamed Ashraf Al-Tabaa, the dead man's
father, said through an interpreter following the court hearing
Wednesday. "I don't understand why all this has happened."
Tabaa, described by friends as a moderately religious man who came to
the United States seven years ago from Syria, was with two of his
friends Thursday night when floodwaters raised by Tropical Storm Floyd
swamped his car.
The three tried to make their way from the Route 46 overpass on Main
Street to Tabaa's Massey Street apartment a few blocks away when Tabaa
lost his footing and was dragged into the current, said Jenna Tezal,
who was with him at the time. "They told us later that the water there
was about 14 feet deep," she said.
Rescue workers tried to pull Tabaa from the water but failed, his
family said. His body was found the next morning.
That's when the trouble began.
In Bergen County, all suspected drowning deaths are reported to the
Prosecutor's Office and studied by the Bergen County medical examiner,
said Prosecutor William H. Schmidt.
But Tabaa was Muslim, and under Islamic law, autopsies are considered
desecrations of the body and are generally prohibited, said Dr. Lal
Pathan of the New Jersey arm of the American Muslim Council.
Also under Islamic law, a body has to be buried as soon as possible --
in most cases within 24 hours of death, Patham added. If not, Muslims
believe, the soul is relegated to limbo, he said.
When Bergen County Assistant Medical Examiner Laura Carbone took
custody of the body on Friday -- the Muslim sabbath -- family members
pleaded with her to forgo the autopsy. But Carbone said she felt she
had no choice.
"First, 24 hours had elapsed from the time that he was last seen," she
testified Wednesday.
Although by all indications Tabaa had never surfaced, and despite the
fact that prosecutors never suspected foul play, it was the medical
examiner's responsibility to conduct an autopsy in any case, she said.
An autopsy would also rule out possible drug or alcohol abuse, she
said, although family members have insisted that Tabaa used neither.
What's more, Carbone said, the autopsy was necessary to determine
categorically whether Tabaa had drowned or died of some other cause --
information that would then be forwarded to the state.
Such standoffs are not uncommon. Carbone recalled at least a dozen
instances since she joined the Medical Examiner's Office three years
ago.
Most times, the issue is resolved amicably, said Dr. Faruk Presswalla,
New Jersey's chief medical examiner.
"In New Jersey, the number of cases that go to court is rather
limited," he said.
Under the state's Religious Objection Act, autopsies must be conducted
only in cases in which homicide is suspected, child abuse may have
occurred, the death occurred in police custody, an infectious disease
may be the cause, or when the medical examiner finds a compelling
social need, Presswalla said.
Medical examiners in New Jersey ordinarily can limit their post-mortem
examinations to the point that families agree to permit the procedure,
he said.
The same is true in New York State, said Rockland County Medical
Examiner Frederick Zugibe.
"When we have to do an autopsy, we do it in the least invasive way
possible," said Zugibe, who has worked closely with members of the
Hasidic community, which also opposes most autopsies, to ease concerns
over the handling of the examinations. In many cases, he said, "a rabbi
is present."
Hamdi Rifai, a lawyer representing the family, said no such compromise
efforts were made in Tabaa's case. Carbone insisted on a "full
autopsy," and when he spoke to her on Monday, "she really didn't answer
any of my questions," he said. So, he said, he went to court.
It was an unusual step.
By law, the medical examiner is the one required to ask a judge to
order an autopsy in such instances.
"Blame it on Floyd," said acting Bergen County Counsel Anthony
DeCandia. He said the chaos created by the storm crippled
communications and stalled the process.
On Monday, three days after Tabaa's body was recovered, the family
retained Rifai. On Wednesday morning, he finally was able to file his
request in Superior Court in Hackensack.
With each passing day, Tabaa's father -- as well as his mother, who had
flown to the United States Monday from Damascus -- fretted over the
fate of their son's soul, said Osamah Khawan, Tabaa's uncle.
By Wednesday afternoon, Rifai and DeCandia were able to strike an
agreement and present it to Superior Court Judge Gerald Escala. Under
the terms of the agreement, Carbone would be permitted to extract blood
and urine samples from the body. She would then turn the body over to
Tabaa's family.
DeCandia said he didn't believe anything could be done to prevent the
same thing from happening in the future. The problems experienced by
Tabaa's family were the result of the flood and the chaos that ensued,
he said.
"When the doctor explained why she needed to do this, it seemed
reasonable," said Dr. Sammih Abassa, a West Orange physician and a
friend of the Tabaa family. "Perhaps this is the price of living in a
democracy."
Tabaa's funeral has been scheduled for Friday at the Omar Ibn Al-Khatab
mosque on Getty Avenue, in Paterson, Khawan said.
Before the delay, the family had planned to bury Tabaa in his native
Damascus, his father said Wednesday. That way, on holy days, his two
brothers and two sisters could visit his grave.
"Now," the father said, "his mother is very worried that his brothers
will not remember him."
Copyright © 1999 Bergen Record Corp.
